


a reason to hope

by Adia (Eva)



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-22 21:20:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8301545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eva/pseuds/Adia
Summary: "But had I known that the Dwarves had stirred up this evil in Moria again, I would have forbidden you to pass the northern borders, you and all that went with you."





	

**Author's Note:**

> quote in summary from Chapter VII of the second book of the Fellowship of the Ring, the Mirror of Galadriel

Winding back along the paths to his sleeping companions, meaning to greet them with the dawn, Legolas was given reason to pause.

There, amid the delicate shafts of moonlight, moving slowly and with an uncharacteristic uncertainty, was Gimli the Dwarf. So strange it was to see him, and to see him thus, with the air of a lost dreamer, that Legolas didn’t call out or even make move himself until Gimli had disappeared along his chosen path. But then, as though to reassure himself that he had seen truly, Legolas diverted in his course and followed.

The Dwarf had come to a small clearing along the bank of a shallow, clear stream, the shifting beams of light dancing through to its smoothly pebbled bed. Neither armor nor axe could be seen, to Legolas’ great surprise, as Gimli reached out in the same strange, slow manner to rest his fingertips on the lichen adorning the trunk of one slight, slender tree.

“Master Dwarf,” he called out softly, to give no reason to startle. But he needn’t have worried, for Gimli turned his head in that dreamlike manner, meeting his eyes with a watchful but not unwelcome gaze.

“Master Legolas,” he said in return, and looked again to the tree. Legolas came even closer, narrowing his eyes at the soft green mass, but it was no different than any other patch of moss he’d seen in the Golden Wood, and he could discern no reason for Gimli's interest.

“What brings you here, in these early hours of the morn?” he asked at last, when it seemed Gimli would say no more.

At that, Gimli frowned and let his hand drop from its uncertain perch. “I… I do not claim to know the ways of Elves in dreaming.” He bit his lip, and at Legolas’ questioning gaze, sighed and seemed to come more to himself. “I dreamed the path, and the glade itself. I didn’t… I didn’t expect to find it, a stream pure as clear quartz, moss like malachite on the silvered bough.” His voice trailed off again, but his brow was now creased, his eyes hooded and distant. Legolas, for no reason he could readily name, felt a pang of sorrow at the transformation.

“A gift of the Lady, no doubt,” he said quickly, “for Elves dream of those places they have known.”

“More clearly than Dwarves, I’m sure,” Gimli murmured. He turned from the tree and made as if to leave, but Legolas had, all unwittingly, blocked the entrance into the little clearing, and found himself loathe to move. 

“Do you dream of your home, then? More commonly, I mean?” 

Gimli met his eyes, sharp and searching, but Legolas kept his countenance innocent. “No, Master Legolas. Not since Rivendell.”

“Then of what, or where, do you dream?”

The silence stretched, but Legolas’ patience was not less than his curiosity, and he was not tired. Gimli’s brow creased further, and his answer was short. “Ered Luin. Other journeys I’ve undertaken. Until I passed through broken Khazad-dum, and left kin and companion to the darkness there.”

Here was dangerous ground, but having pushed thus far—alike to a wanderer following a path from a dream, perhaps—Legolas couldn’t make himself turn aside, no matter that he felt now as if he stood at the precipice. “Do you dream of that darkness yet, in the light of Lothlorien?”

And though Gimli would not now meet his eyes, he could nevertheless see the pain tightening his face and drawing his shoulders in. “I need not dream it. My heart is yet as hollow as those ruined halls. Do not forget that we are in the land of your kin, Elf, and I will see again the face of no living Dwarf unless we should accomplish our impossible Quest.”

All at once, the weight of it fell on Legolas, and his bones seemed to shudder under the shame of his misunderstanding. 

“Do not mistake me!” Gimli thundered, seeming incensed by the slump of Legolas’ shoulders. “I do not quake in the face of it! I will march into the depths of the Black Land itself before fear or grief break me! If—“

And he turned away suddenly, violently, facing the stream again and drawing a deep, stuttering breath. For all the danger between them now, the night air knew naught but peace.

“If?” Legolas repeated, and dared to draw closer.

“Do not doubt me,” Gimli said, each word as hard, as inviolate as stone. “You pulled me from my kinsman’s tomb. Do not seek now to leave me there.”

The silence in the clearing was so absolute that Legolas could hear the racing, unsteady rhythm of his companion’s heartbeat. “No, my friend. I would not leave you there.”

“Friend?” Gimli laughed, but it rang false, broke under the gentlest scrutiny. “And here I hoped only to still be counted as a member of the Fellowship!”

“I don’t—“

“That I should be so mistrusted as to be led blindfolded, alone of all my companions?” he demanded, hands folded into fists, though he faced away from Legolas still. “That you would agree to it, and speak no word of said agreement though I was to be shamed before all?”

“That is not what I meant!” Legolas cried, in both anger and horror, and now he forced Gimli to face him, pulled him ‘round and met those dark, agonized eyes. 

“To be brought before the Lord of this land and denounced as a greater danger, a fouler and more tainted thing, than even the One Ring?” Now Gimli shut his eyes, bowing his head to hide the tears that Legolas spied glinting under dark lashes. “Or did you think I would forget that by his own word he would have denied all aid to this company, had he known my folk woke the Balrog once again?”

He wouldn’t stand for this pain to be relived. “The Lady rebuked him, before all their people,” Legolas said fiercely, and dug his fingers deeper into Gimli’s broad shoulders. “Do you forget that?”

“I do not,” Gimli sighed, and the tension bled from his body even as the breath fled his lips. But Legolas’ hopes were not realized, as he continued in soft, strained voice. “The first night. Here, in these trees, at the border. I dreamt of Moria.”

“Gimli,” Legolas said helplessly, though what else he could add, he didn’t know.

“I walked the halls alone, to Balin’s tomb. Foul laughter, insults and taunts, ringing from every shadow. And my axe too heavy in my hand to lift.” He turned his head away and it was all Legolas could do not to kneel, not to search for Gimli’s eyes and beg forgiveness without words for making him confess this. “I dropped it there, in the dust, as red fire grew in the darkness, and it shattered.”

“Never happened,” Legolas snapped and finally did as his soul commanded, dropping to his knees. “Gimli.”

“It is as you said, Master Legolas,” Gimli said quietly. “The Lady rebuked her Lord, and I am not the instrument of yet more grief. Forgive my words. I should not have shared them.”

“No. No, forgive me, my friend.” The words rushed out of him like water. Gimli’s eyes opened, wide and startled. “I haven’t been a true companion to you.”

“Legolas—“

“You have been faithfulness itself, staying true to our Fellowship even in the face of such loss,” he continued, pressing an advantage he only now could sense. “Please. It is much to ask, too much, perhaps, but please. Do not fall now.”

In the midst of grief, guilt, and confession, Gimli the Dwarf could yet be spurred to simple, yet uplifting, irritation. “Did I not just say I wouldn’t, Elf?”

“You did,” Legolas said gravely, and smiled. Hope, in the gentleness of hobbits, he had accepted. Now, in the stubbornness of Dwarves? And so it was Gimli’s turn to stare, seeking answers in Legolas’ gaze, and Legolas could only draw again upon his patience and allow him to search his full, in the gentle light of the moon.

“You are strange,” Gimli pronounced at last, and shrugged Legolas’ hands from his shoulders. He looked back then, at the stream, and breathed out in a huff. “I thought this would be a quieter sort of midnight sightseeing.”

“Nearer to morning, now, than midnight.” Legolas stood and stretched, shaking out the tension in his limbs. “So you dreamt of this place?”

“Again, I said just that, mere moments ago,” Gimli said, and Legolas was cheered to hear the beginning of laughter in his voice. “Aren’t you Elves supposed to have keen hearing? Hobbits breathing in full dark, sort of thing?”

“Have you dreamt of any other paths in the Golden Wood? This is pleasant enough, but.” Legolas paused. “Perhaps a place where we can see the stars unhindered?” He was pleased to see Gimli raise an eyebrow at the use of the word ‘we,’ though he hid it.

Gimli shook his head, but it wasn’t necessarily a denial. “If there’s something in particular you would like to see, you might ask your kinsfolk,” he suggested, though there was no particular edge to it. A reason, Legolas mused, to hope.

“And if I did, would you join me?”


End file.
